Jeanne
White-Ginder, the mother of Ryan White -- who attracted
nationwide attention after contracting HIV from a tainted
blood treatment in 1984 and died at the age of 18 in
1990 -- said she welcomed the opportunity to
speak with Republican Mike Huckabee to discuss his
comments about AIDS.
"I think
if we meet I'm going to give him one of Ryan's
books," she told The Advocate, referring
to the book her son authored about his battle
against AIDS.
White-Ginder
requested the meeting after Huckabee, a former minister
whose presidential candidacy has recently caught fire,
defended his 1992 statement that the federal
government needed "to take steps that would isolate
the carriers of this plague.'' Speaking on Fox
News Sunday last weekend, Huckabee declined to
retract the comment but said he was not suggesting that
AIDS patients should have been quarantined. He did not
offer an alternative explanation for how people living
with AIDS at the time could have been isolated.
White-Ginder also
hopes to bring with her some folks who are living with
AIDS. "They're very responsible,
they're back to their jobs because of the meds,
and I would just like him to see the new face of AIDS today.
It really saddens me to think that they don't
have a presidential candidate's support. We
have to respect the disease and the people who have
it."
While campaigning
in Iowa on Tuesday, the former Arkansas governor told
the Associated Press, "I would be very willing to meet with
them. I would tell them we've come a long way in
research, in treatment."
Though
Huckabee's meteoric rise in the polls nationally and
in the early primary states has put his record under
greater scrutiny, White-Ginder was surprised there
wasn't more of an "outcry" about his
recent comments or even the statement he made back in
1992. "It was a big disappointment really,
because a presidential candidate even referring to that
information in '92 was unrealistic," she said,
recalling the early '80s when people initially
thought that casual contact involving kissing, tears,
sweat, and saliva might spread HIV, the virus that causes
AIDS. "We fought so hard -- and I'm not
just saying me and Ryan -- to get us where we are
today. I just think as a presidential candidate, we really
have to be watchful of what we say and do because you are
going to represent all of us -- and yes, you're
going to represent all our people with AIDS if you are
our president."
White-Ginder said
that getting information out about AIDS and HIV has
been particularly difficult because of "the religious
and moral issues that have always surrounded the
disease." Especially in Southern states and
other conservative areas of the country, she added,
"we haven't been able to make it real to
people that everybody is at risk for this disease.
Now, some people are at higher risk, but this is
everybody's disease." An estimated
550,000 people have died of AIDS
complications in the United States up through 2005.
White-Ginder tends to lean toward supporting Democrats
but added that she works with legislators on both
sides of the aisle and said, "I have a great
deal of respect for both parties." Her biggest
concern in the race for president is not electing
someone who advocates for abstinence-only education in
schools and public facilities rather than educating
adolescents about birth control, condom use, and the spread
of sexually transmitted diseases.
"As a
mother who has been involved in this AIDS epidemic for so
long, I hear the stories, I see the faces, I know what
kids are doing, and it's not what we parents
ideally would always want them to do," she said.
"But we have to be real, we have to get real
with the disease. And we have to be able to speak
about it at church and at home and in schools."
The Huckabee
campaign did not respond to a request for
comment. (Kerry Eleveld, The Advocate)
